It's Not Fair I'll Still Save You, Love
by PanicMoon15
Summary: A companion piece to 'Giving Up Is Easy but We'll Take the Challenge'. Takes place after the last chapter when Lance goes back to London to find his baby sister. Jemma's life, and Jemma's new life. She's been waiting for so long.


**A/N:Hey guys, just a short oneshot about Hunter and Jemma, and what happened when he went back to London to see her. Hope you like it. :)**

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Jemma wasn't just clever. She wasn't just 'above average' or 'talented'. Jemma Simmons was a genius, and she knew it.

The thing about being a gifted child, was that she was expected to understand everything going on around her. Her teachers expected it, her friends, her family, even Jemma expected a certain level of understanding from herself. It just didn't always happen that way.

Sometimes things were difficult to understand.

Jemma Simmons was nine years old, she lived with her mother and her father in London, in a flat with damp walls and padlocks on the front door, and Jemma Simmons didn't understand why.

They used to live in a house a few months before. It wasn't great, but Jemma didn't mind. She stayed with her big brother and his girlfriend, or rather, wife now, most of the time anyway when they were around.

Jemma hadn't seen Lance and Bobbi in a while. Not since they'd turned up at the flat to tell her they'd eloped and were moving away to America. Lance had promised to come back for her. Jemma was still waiting. She trusted him to come for her.

"Why did Lance go away?" She asked her mother.

Her mother ignored her.

Jemma looked back down at her school books in her lap. They had come to the flat a while ago, and she hadn't seen Lance or Bobbi for weeks. She missed them a lot.

"I miss Lance and Bobbi." She muttered, and her mother whipped around and smacked the back of her head with the hand holding her cigarette. Jemma whimpered and tried to brush the hot ash out of her hair.

"If you miss him so much, why don't you just go and fucking live with him?" Her mother hissed. "Him and his little slag of a girlfriend."

She hadn't bothered to tell her mother and father what Lance had told her about getting married. She thought that they didn't deserve to know.

"Bobbi's not a slag." Jemma whispered, looking down at her fingers.

Her mother laughed. "You don't even know what a slag is."

She didn't, but she knew it wasn't nice. Bobbi was nice. Jemma loved Bobbi almost as much as she loved her brother.

Jemma wiped away her tears and took her books to the back of the room where she could hide behind the sofa. The advanced biochemistry her teacher had given her proved no challenge for her gifted mind, but when she tried to justify why her mother and father hated her, well, she came up with nothing solid.

Jemma missed her Lance. Her big brother. Her, well, he was her dad, not the man who liked to get drunk and rip up her homework. Lance Hunter was Jemma's dad, and she loved him. Maybe biology disagreed about her parentage, but Jemma Simmons knew in her heart of hearts that her dad was Lance Hunter. He was the one who loved her and fed her and clothed her and cared for her. She missed him.

"Hiding, are ya?" Her mother slurred.

Jemma tried to ignore her and shuffled closer to the wall. Peeling wallpaper touched the back of her neck and she jumped.

"Don't worry, petal, the fucker's coming to get you." Her mother sounded almost apologetic. Maybe not quite, but certainly her words held no venom for once.

Jemma poked her head out from behind the couch. "Who's coming to get me?"

"Your brother." Her mother lit another cigarette and took a long drag. "You'll be better with him. He wants you."

She watched as her mother drank something foul smelling out of a chipped mug. "Do you not want me?" Jemma asked quietly.

The woman laughed darkly. "Not really, petal. You're a bit in the way if I'm being honest."

"Oh."

"Not your fault your dad didn't know how to use a condom."

Jemma scrunched up her face. " _He's_ not my dad." She eyed the closed bedroom door, behind which her father was sleeping. "Dad's don't do the things he does."

Her mother shrugged. "Yeah, well."

A while after that, when Jemma's mother had refilled her mug twice, her father emerged from the bedroom. He grunted at her mother. Jemma stayed behind the couch.

He reached over to grab a shirt from the back of the sofa, and his eyes caught sight of Jemma. Her father grinned.

"Ha!" He lunged at her, laughing when she jumped. He turned back to her mother. "Couldn't have had a normal kid? Christ, both your kids are fucking retards."

Jemma covered her ears and closed her eyes.

Her mother said something to her father. She didn't know what. Then they were fighting. Something smashed close to Jemma's head and she started sobbing. The shouting was enough to make her head hurt. She rubbed her palms over her ears in an attempt to drown out the sound.

It went quiet, and Jemma dropped her hands from her ears. She peered out from the side of the couch, and her hand touched damp carpet. When she looked down, there were little shards of ceramic and the handle of the mug by her fingers.

"Jem?"

Her head whipped up, and Jemma almost put her hand in the broken mug in her rushed attempt to climb out from behind the couch.

"Lance." She sobbed, and ran at her big brother standing in the centre of the living room.

He caught her easily and lifted her into his arms, kissing her hair and rocking her from side to side. "Jem, oh, sweetheart." He cooed.

Jemma held onto him tightly and wrapped her legs around his waist. "Please." She didn't know what she was begging for. To be taken away? To be cuddled? To be taken care of? All of it. "Please."

"Get your stuff, Jem." Lance said, putting her down. He kept his hands on her shoulders. "Go and pack up your things, sweets."

Jemma didn't move. Her mother and father were watching the exchange from the other side of the room. He leaned against the doorframe, their mother sat on the floor.

Her father scoffed. "Pansy." He sniggered.

Lance turned to him, but didn't say anything. Instead her big brother pulled a folded brown envelope out of his pocket and threw it in their mother's lap.

"Do us all a favour and sign those, will you?" He reached down and took Jemma's hand without looking away. "I've spoken to a couple of people at social services. Called in a couple of favours from a friend back home. Sign them, both of you, and Jemma comes with me."

Their mother ran a hand over the envelope. She pulled an unlit cigarette from a box by her hip and began moving it over her upper lip. "So, what, I sign these and then Jemma goes with you?"

" _He_ has to sign as well."

Jemma's father grabbed the envelope from her mother and pulled out the papers. "Got a pen, girlie?" He asked Jemma.

She nodded and reached for one from the couch, throwing it to him. He began scribbling signatures on the papers, the lid of the biro in his mouth.

Lance squeezed Jemma's hand. "If you both sign those papers, them I can take Jemma with me, you can bugger off to Spain, and we can call it quits." He pulled Jemma closer and she cuddled into his side. "Can we all agree that this is the best call?"

"Aye." Jemma's dad said around the pen lid, dropping the papers into their mother's lap. "Here." He held out the pen to her. "Quicker you do this, quicker the kids can fuck off."

Jemma was confused, she was scared, she was worried, and excited, and maybe she was a little sad. She held tightly onto Lance's t-shirt and rested her head on his arm.

Maybe Jemma could pretend that her mother had paused a little longer before signing away her only daughter, but logically, she knew that would not be an accurate representation of the situation. It hurt. They didn't want her.

But Lance wanted her.

The papers were signed too quickly, and Lance helped her pack her things. They were only in the bedroom for twenty minutes at most, but by the time they re-entered the living room, both of Jemma's parents were gone. Lance didn't dwell on this, mumbling to himself about a 'glorious man' that Jemma thought was called 'Nick Fury', but Jemma stopped in the room and looked around.

The broken mug was still on the ground. There were dirty dishes in the sink. The wallpaper was peeling and the damp patches in the corners of the walls were still unpleasant. It was never home.

"Why didn't they want me?" She asked Lance, and he knelt down in front of her.

"Because, love," He said, kissing her forehead, "they didn't deserve you."

"I'm not sure I understand." Jemma said.

"I'm not sure either of us ever will." He hugged her tightly. "My baby girl. You are so loved."

"By you?" Jemma squeezed him.

"By all the best people. Me, Bobbi…all the best people."

They did a final sweep of the flat, got all of Jemma's things, and closed the door behind them. They packed up the car Lance had hired from the airport, and drove.

When they were almost at the airport, and when Jemma could see the planes coming into land above the car, she turned to her brother.

"Lance, where are we going?"

He turned to her and smiled, holding out his hand for her to take, squeezing it when she did. "Home. I'm taking you home, Jems."

Home. Jemma liked the sound of that.

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 **A/N: Review, please! xxx**


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